Millie The Goat Escaped Her Leash To Make An Early Morning Run To A Starbucks
A goat walks into a coffee shop — it may sound like the beginning of a terrible joke, but one Northern California Starbucks found themselves on the receiving end of said goat’s need for a quick pick me up. It seems Caffeine is not just for humans anymore.
The police department in the city of Rohnert Park, located about 50 miles north of San Francisco, received more than a few strange calls on Sunday morning about something that most departments cannot fathom happening, a goat was making the rounds at a local strip mall on the eastern edge of the city. It was later determined that the wandering goat’s name was Millie, and her presence caused quite the controversy.
Employees at the Starbucks inside the mall state that upon opening the coffee shop around 5 a.m. in the morning they encountered Millie loitering around outside first in line ahead of the typical morning crush of coffee seekers. The confused staff then attempted to befriend and placate the goat by offering up a tasty banana as a treat in an effort to lead her outside, but she simply would not have it. Millie the goat breezed by the Starbucks employees and went straight into the store, seemingly to get a better look at all it had to offer.
https://www.facebook.com/RohnertParkPoliceFire/posts/1255462441148202
Perhaps it was because the staff in the coffee shop refused her service, or the goat may have a palette not suited to the coffee on hand at this establishment, but after a while, just as she had done with the banana, Millie ignored the flavors on display. However, she did not yet wish to actually leave. Instead, Millie the goat seemed to have found favor and flavor in the form of a cardboard box on the floor of the Starbucks and proceeded to chew on it.
When the officers responded to the call and encountered Millie, they were left with very few options but to take her into custody and, as the Washington Post wrote, take her to a nearby shelter.
Before taking her in, though, the officers of the Rohnert Park Police Department took multiple photos of Millie milling around the Starbucks and posted them to their Facebook page in an attempt to locate the owner. Word of the farmyard animal’s antics quickly spread and social media ate up the story of the goat who needed her morning fix from Starbucks. Police Sergeant Rick Bates spoke to one of the news outlets on how strange he found the entire incident.
“I was a little bit surprised, it’s not every day a goat walks into a Starbucks.”
The owners of the 11-year-old pet goat soon received word of her presence in the mall and it turned out that the little thing had not been too far from home. Alan Ergenbright, a 12-year-old who happens to be one of Millie’s owners, said she had escaped her sleeping quarters after managing to free herself from the leash she had been on. Daily Mail wrote that the animal and her owners lived just around the corner from the Starbucks where she was found.
The goat that wandered into a Rohnert Park Starbucks has been claimed https://t.co/Spuv70B5Fg pic.twitter.com/ewqF8p3tcQ
— SFGATE (@SFGate) April 10, 2016
Alan stated that his parents had picked up the goat from the Rohnert Park Animal Shelter and returned her home to the company of their other animals, which includes the family’s dog and six chickens.
“When we heard, we thought she was a little crazy. She’s a really happy and sweet goat. She’s also pretty curious. We’re going to build a fence today so she doesn’t get away again, and so she can walk around freely.”
Fortunately, Millie the goat was well behaved for the most part and left no evidence of her visit to the Starbucks behind.
[Photo Courtesy of Sgt. Rick Bates/Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety]
